FROM: GLOBAL JUSTICE CENTER
RE: WRITTEN CONTRIBUTION TO THE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE, JUNE 26TH, 2015
HALF DAY OF GENERAL DISCUSSION ON ARTICLE 6 “RIGHT TO LIFE”
The Global Justice Centeri welcomes the Human Rights Committee’ (“Committee”) discussion on the
right to life and believes that General Comment 36 presents an opportunity for the Committee to provide
guidance for States parties’ on upholding ICCPR Article 6’s right to life by guaranteeing access to safe
abortion for female victims of rape.
Protecting women’s right to life under Article 6 by affirming the right to abortion for women and
girls, in particular for war victims.
Accessing abortion is of specific importance for women’s right to life, since many states limit the rights of
women through prohibitive abortion laws and restricted access to reproductive services. Restricting access
to abortion services and thus forcing war rape victims to carry their pregnancies increases the risk of
maternal mortality in numerous ways.
First, the physical suffering resulting from the denial of abortion can be so severe as to threaten the lives
of impregnated war rape victims. More specifically, unwanted pregnancies from rape and the conditions
imposed by war—namely malnutrition, anemia, malaria, exposure, stress, infection, disease—increase the
risk of maternal mortality.ii For many women, abortion is not only the preferable option but also the safer
option as compared to an unwanted and dangerous pregnancy. Even outside of conflict, where women
and girls face increased maternal mortality due to many factors,iii childbirth is 14 times more likely to lead
to death than a safe abortion.iv Rape in conflict, especially when committed against children or by gang
rape,v causes many physical injuries that render pregnancy and childbirth even more dangerous. For
instance, a study by Harvard and Oxfam found that, “[a]lthough the risks of childbirth are real for any
Congolese woman, they are significantly higher for young girls whose bodies are not mature enough for
labor and delivery and for women who have serious pelvic injuries and scarring from the physical damage
often caused by gang rape. While some women die during childbirth, many other women suffer non-lethal
complications.”vi For girls, specifically, delivery of a baby can lead to “rupture of the uterus and death of
the child.”vii
Second, when women are denied abortion service, many resort to “non-sterile” or “non-medical methods”
to terminate their pregnancies, including the consumption of dangerous liquids, excessive levels of malaria
medication, and the insertion of sharp objects into the vagina, which can lead to a perforated uterus and
ultimately result in death.viii As of 2012, it was estimated that unsafe abortions claim the lives of 47,000
women each year, occurring in countries where restrictive abortion laws are in place.ix
Third, rape victims who are forced to carry their pregnancies are oftentimes put at risk mental suffering.
This stems largely from the fact that women and girls who have been targeted for sexual violence
experience a loss of control of their physical integrity, forcing them to carry an unwanted pregnancy to
term perpetuates that loss of control and compounds the mental and emotional trauma experience by war
rape victims.x Pregnancy and being forced to bear the child a rapist “prolongs the perpetrator’s intrusion
often causing great anguish and shame to the victim.”xi This suffering may result in self-harm or
Human Rights Through The Rule Of Law
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familial/community violence. This was the case of one young woman committed suicide because she was
unable to obtain an abortion and another who was thrown from a balcony by her father.xii
Finally, the physical and mental consequences of denying abortion for rape victims can be so severe that
the United Kingdom and the Committee against Torture have indicated it can amount to torture or cruel
and degrading treatment.xiii
It is clear that denying women access to abortion and reproductive services constitute a threat to their
lives—a fact that has been increasingly recognized by global actors. It has been reaffirmed by the
Committee, in recognizing women’s reproductive rights being “firmly rooted in their right to life.”xiv The
UN Secretary General has similarly affirmed the right to abortions for rape victims in his 2013 Report on
Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, noting that “access to safe emergency contraception and services for
termination of pregnancies resulting from rape should be an integral component of multisectoral
response.”xv The Committee against Torture has also affirmed that the denial of abortions may amount to
torture where there is a blanket banxvi and where the pregnancy is the result of rape.xvii
Because the inability to obtain an abortion is a life-or-death matter for many rape victims, GJC
recommends that the upcoming General Comment on Article 6 explicitly affirms that states must provide
adequate reproductive services to women, including access to abortion, in order to comply with their
obligations under Article 6 of the Covenant.
ABOUT THE GLOBAL JUSTICE CENTER
The Global Justice Center (GJC) is a non-profit non-governmental organization working for peace, justice,
and security by enforcing international laws that protect human rights and promote gender equality.
GJC is a US based human rights organization with consultative status to the United Nations focusing on advancing gender
equality through the rule of law.
ii See Harvard School of Public Health & Physicians for Human Rights, The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Darfur,
Sudan, 20 Oct. 2004, at 20; see also Médecins Sans Frontières, “I Have No Joy, No Peace of Mind”: Medical, Psychological, and SocioEconomic Consequences of Sexual Violence in Eastern DRC, 2004, at 11.
iii See Harvard School of Public Health & Physicians for Human Rights, The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Darfur,
Sudan, 20 Oct. 2004, at 20.
iv E.G. Raymond & D.A. Grimes, The comparative safety of legal induced abortion and childbirth in the United States, 199(2) OBSTETRICS
AND GYNECOLOGY 215-219 (Feb. 2012).
v As is often the case in war. See Save the Children, Unspeakable Crimes against Children: Sexual Violence in Conflict, 2013, at v;
Cassandra Clifford, Presentation at the 7th Global Conference on Violence and the Contexts of Hostility: Rape as a Weapon of War
and It’s [sic] Long Term Effects on Victims and Society, Budapest, Hungary (5 – 7 May 2008), available at http://tssi.org/files/BMJCliffordPaper.pdf [hereinafter Clifford, Rape as a Weapon of War] (“Victims [of war rape] are often raped multiple
times and gang raped, which can cause a much higher degree of physical and physiological injuries, and often lead to death.”).
vi Harvard Humanitarian Initiative & Oxfam International, Now The World Is Without Me: An Investigation Of Sexual Violence In
Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Apr. 2010, at 41.
vii Helen Liebling, Henny Slegh, & Benoit Ruratotoye, Women and Girls Bearing Children through Rape in Goma, Eastern Congo: Stigma,
Health and Justice Responses, Vol. IV ITUPALE ONLINE J. AFR. STUDIES 18, 25 (2012).
viii Cassandra Clifford, Presentation at the 7th Global Conference on Violence and the Contexts of Hostility: Rape as a Weapon of
War and its Long Term Effects on Victims and Society, Budapest, Hungary, (May 5-7, 2008), at 2, http://tssi.org/files/BMJCliffordPaper.pdf
ix World Health Organization, SAFE ABORTION: TECHNICAL AND POLICY GUIDANCE FOR HEALTH SYSTEMS 17-18 (2012), available
at http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/70914/1/9789241548434_eng.pdf.
x See Id. See also Amnesty International, The Total Ban in Nicaragua: Women’s Lives and Health Endangered, Medical Professional
Criminalized, 2009, at 23.
i
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Jill Trenholm, Women Survivors, Lost Children and Traumatized Masculinities: The Phenomena of Rape and War in Eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo, DIGITAL COMPREHENSIVE SUMMARIES OF UPPSALA DISSERTATIONS FROM THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE 920, 2013,
at 49.
xii Annick Cojean, Syria’s Silent Crime: Systematic Mass Rape, LE MONDE, March 11, 2014.
xiii DfID, Response to the Women’s Hour Debate on BBC Radio 4 Around Access to Abortion Services in Conflict Zones,
available athttp://bit.ly/1KicVGx; Committee against Torture, Concluding Observations: Nicaragua, ¶ 16, U.N. Doc.
CAT/C/NIC/CO/1 (10 June 2009).
xiv See, e.g., Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations: Peru, ¶ 14, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/PER/CO/5 (2013); Human Rights
Committee, Concluding Observations: Dominican Republic, ¶ 15, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/DOM/CO/5 (2012); Human Rights Committee,
Concluding Observations: Cameroon, ¶ 13, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/CMR/CO/4 (2010); Human Rights Committee, Concluding Observations:
Democratic Republic of Congo, ¶ 14, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/COD/CO/3 (2006).
xv 2013 Secretary General Report to the Security Council, U.N. Doc. A/67/792–S/2013/149, ¶12 (Mar. 14, 2013).
xvi Committee against Torture, Concluding Observations: Paraguay, ¶ 22, U.N. Doc. CAT/C/PRY/CO/4-6 (14 Dec. 2011) [hereinafter
CAT Concluding Observations: Paraguay].
xvii CAT Concluding Observations: Paraguay, ¶ 22; CAT Concluding Observations: Nicaragua, ¶ 16.
xi
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